Thermal barrier coatings are deposited onto gas turbine and other heat engine parts to reduce heat flow and to limit the operating temperature of metal parts. These coatings generally are a ceramic material, such as chemically stabilized zirconia. Yttria-stabilized zirconia, scandia-stabilized zirconia, calcia-stabilized zirconia, and magnesia-stabilized zirconia are contemplated as thermal barrier coatings. The thermal barrier coating of choice is a yttria-stabilized zirconia ceramic coating. A typical thermal barrier coating comprises about 8 weight percent yttria-92 weight percent zirconia. The thickness of a thermal barrier coating depends on the application, but generally ranges between about 5-60 mils thick for high temperature engine parts.
Metal parts provided with thermal barrier coatings can be made from nickel, cobalt, and iron based superalloys. The process is especially suited for parts and hardware used in turbines. Examples of turbine parts would be turbine blades, buckets, nozzles, combustion liners, and the like.
Thermal barrier coatings are a key element in current and future gas turbine engine designs expected to operate at high temperatures which produce high thermal barrier coating surface temperatures. The ideal system for a hot high temperature engine part consists of a strain-tolerant thermal barrier ceramic layer deposited onto a bond coat which exhibits good corrosion resistance and closely matched thermal expansion coefficients.
Under service conditions, thermal barrier coated engine parts can be susceptible to various modes of damage, including erosion, oxidation, and attack from environmental contaminants. At temperatures of engine operation adherence of these environmental contaminants on the hot thermal barrier coated surface can cause damage to the thermal barrier coating. Environmental contaminants form compositions, which are liquid at the surface temperatures of thermal barrier coatings.
Chemical and mechanical interactions occur between the contaminant compositions and the thermal barrier coatings. Molten contaminant compositions can dissolve the thermal barrier coating or can infiltrate its pores and openings, initiating and propagating cracks causing delamination and loss of thermal barrier coating material.
Some environmental contaminant compositions that deposit on thermal barrier coated surfaces contain oxides of calcium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, and mixtures thereof. These oxides combine to form contaminant compositions comprising calcium-magnesium-aluminum-silicon-oxide systems (Ca--Mg--Al--SiO), herein referred to as CMAS. Damage to thermal barrier coatings occurs when the molten CMAS infiltrates the thermal barrier coating. After infiltration and upon cooling, the molten CMAS, or other molten contaminant composition, solidifies. The stress build up in the thermal barrier coating is sufficient to cause spallation of the coating material and loss of the thermal protection that it provides to the underlying part.
There is a need to reduce or prevent the damage to thermal barrier coatings caused by the reaction or infiltration of molten contaminant compositions at the operating temperature of the engine. This can be accomplished by raising the melting temperature or viscosity of a contaminant composition when it forms on the hot surfaces of thermal barrier coated parts so that the contaminant composition does not form a reactive liquid or flow into the thermal barrier coating.